@all: attacking seems like a really bad idea to be honest. What happens if there's a few men tomorrow and we kill/capture them all? There could be 30 coming the very same day/night without us knowing anything. I'm all about roleplaying so if this is what your characters think that's fine but it doesn't seem very smart nor responsible to me.
quote: "It's just been the man with a few of their cronies."
Doesn't seem like they are going to show up with 30 people to me. Obviously if they get in with two dozen people, we'll just content ourselves with making sure they don't get any money from Oleg and Svetlana, and not attack.
But let's face it, this doesn't seem to be an exceedingly professional outfit, more like a band of greedy opportunists that know they can get away with extortion because they are in a border zone with no low enforcement, picking on a couple where the man is afraid for his wife.
Cool Vivian, you're from the North of France eh? I'm from Belgium myself :)
They'll show up with a few. They don't come back, what's the rest going to do? They might show up in full force expecting trouble. And we nor Oleg and Svetlana will know when. What if we have to leave before they show up? They might wait a few days in case the collecting crew always make rounds that last a few days. Do we wait until they show up? How long will we wait? etc.
We need options to prevent them from escaping. And get them all off their mounts before the attack. Can the front gates of the fort be closed with any relative speed?
I had the same question about the front gates. I also agree that once a plan of action is decided upon we should hash out the details here. The only thing is that we are still not all on the same page about what our course of action should be. If we don't have that figured out by tonight, Gordom is going to recommend putting it to a vote (The two options seeming to be ambush them here or let them take the tax and follow them).
The gates are in decent shape. You figure that two humans working together could close the gates in one round. They are a bit big for the gnomes to handle.
LOL! The pits are midden pits, used for composting rubbish, and other matter, for Svetlana's vegetable patch out back. However, they are deep enough to serve as makeshift jail cells.
But they have a grate that goes over top of them? A gargabe pit seems fitting for them :) Sorry, they just looked like a jail. On a TV show I saw them dig a pit in the jungle and then cover with with a bamboo which is what the picture reminded me of.
Don't use this as advice for starting an organic garden. What I think the artist is trying to depict grating for holding a cover in place to keep the compost from getting wet. Wet compost breeds all sort of nastiness, dry compost turns into good plant food. But, yes, the pits might hold captives. They don't do a good job at showing the cover, but given the scale of the map you did well noticing grated pits.
Male Human Ranger/1; HP 9/11; AC 15/12/13; Init +2
@robertness: Just a friendly reminder for you and me, my favored enemy is Humans so if these bandits are human I get a +2 bonus on attack, damage, and skill checks against them.
You have the rest of the night and an hour of morning to get ready for the bandits. You have plenty of time to make whatever arrangements for concealing your position and such you feel are needed. Please be sure to describe what you're doing.
You'll notice that the map has a coordinate system. The lower left square is 0,0 and the upper right one is 24,29. Please include the square your character will occupy when the bandits arrive in the game thread post where you want to tell me you're ready for bandits. Don't forget special notes like if you're waiting in 4,4 (part of the southwest tower) whether your on top of or under the tower.
I should have given everyone a heads up about that. If you see a spoiler tag like this:
Random Skill DC10:
This is a secret only folks who made the roll can read.
Roll that skill (if you have it) using the dice option in a post. If you made the roll, go ahead and read the spoiler.
The spoiler I put in the last game post was just a little silliness on my part, so no big deal if you've read it without a roll. I just wanted everyone to see how posts like that go before we get into more serious parts of the story.
There is a cart in the yard. The wheels need some work.
You'd be making Stealth rolls for hiding. Aid another and Take 10 are possible, but take 20 not so much. The Stealth roll, as I rule it, is making a check at that moment against the searcher's Perception so you can't keep trying to get it right. What prep time will get you going into the encounter with the bandits is a chance to build up stuff to hide behind and such to get concealment bonuses to any possible Stealth rolls.
Male Human Ranger/1; HP 9/11; AC 15/12/13; Init +2
Okay, well it seems like w'eve got a general strategy worked out so we can fine tune it here unless someone wants to role play it out. Juwwem Was going to be our negotiator so he'll either be openly standing with Oleg or hiding nearby. I can help close one of the doors so I'm going to stand behind it and use the door as concealment to help my hide check. Whoever wants to get the other door should probably do the same thing. That leaves three other people who should either be near Juwwem or in one of the towers depending on whether they prefer to fight melee or range.
Sounds like we are doing this. So what's The Plan(tm)? Surely nothing with go wrong :) But in that eventuality, we should probably think of some contigencies.
In a perfect world, they will ride in to A1 and dismount. Oleg alone greets them as usual. Svetlana is safe hiding away as usual. After they dismount, we close the gates. Shix appears and offers them the ultimatum. They reject it and attempt to fight their way back out. Oleg flees to A6 to see to his wife and stay out of it. Don't want him hurt.
We know we need two humans to shut the gates. Perhaps Vivian and myself should do that. Juwwem and Shix work to distract the bandits for a round or two. That would leave Gordom and Andarr free to herd the horses away with their superior animal skills and deny the bandits easy escape and a mounted combat advantage?
Male Human Ranger/1; HP 9/11; AC 15/12/13; Init +2
Well, I'm sorry but I'm actually on leave for the week and I have a lot of free time.
Anyway, I don't want to see the horses hurt but if they aren't combat trained they will balk at the sight of combat unless they have expert riders (which they don't). So it might actually be easier to let them stay mounted and to pick the riders off with arrows.
No worries. Good point about the horses (I just want to score a free one out of this, don't kill them all please!).
Just thinking aloud. So Gordom and Vivian on the doors?
It's actually Shix that's going to try talking. Does he even have to be close to them to do that? Could he hide on the pallisade and just stand up after they're through the gates and trapped?
Adarr, Firemane, and I could be behind A4 and rush out from that side. Juwwem could either be with us or on the pallisades as well depending on his preference for melee or ranged.
What do we do if they don't all come inside the fort?
Male Human Ranger/1; HP 9/11; AC 15/12/13; Init +2
Okay, I'm the racist human who thinks all gnomes are the same. Guilty as charged. And no problem with the horses, I'd like to hope that them surviving was part of the plan anyway.
Them all not coming inside the fort shouldn't be a problem. We just won't close the doors until they are all inside. I'm sure that if they see that their leader has an arrow sticking out of them they will rush to his aid.
On that note, something I was thinking of. Usually a good strategy is to remove the greatest threat first. That would be hatchet man. Even better, if the rest of the group sees the leader go down they might be a whole lot easier to negotiate with.
I'm inclined to agree with Gordom on this one in that we should focus fire on the leader first. As for my placement I would prefer to be in the fray to take full advantage of burning hands.
On that note, how flammable are the surrounding buildings and such? Do I have to worry if some of the cone hits a structure?
No burning my future and faithful steed Buttercup!
You guys keep talking about a leader, but we don't know which one it may be. And from Svetlana's story, it sounds like the woman is the big honcho of the group and she doesn't bother coming to the fort anymore.
Male Human Ranger/1; HP 9/11; AC 15/12/13; Init +2
Vivian: Door
Gordom: Other Door
Shix: Negotiator (Either with Oleg or hidden nearby)
Juwwem: After battle healer, cover for Oleg if needed
Narja/Andarr: Backup for if (when) things turn nasty. Possibly hiding behind building A4 with Firemane.
Does this sound right? It would be nice if we can get this moving by either today (Thursday) or tomorrow.
@Robertness: Unless the plan changes dramatically, Gordom will be ready to close the left hand door at the first sign of trouble or signal from shix. I will be in square (3,12) where I will be making a stealth check with the open door as concealment. I didn't see any special rule for that in the core book so I'll let you treat it as you wish.
Looks like everyone has their plan in place, so I'll be posting a "the bandits show up" post after work tonight (roughly 7:00pm EDT.) Please post a sentence or two about where your character is and what they're doing in the gameplay thread ending with your map coordinates and Stealth roll.
By the way: I want to introduce you to the Out of Character formatting tag. It's like this with square brackets instead of curly - {ooc}Stuff your character isn't saying.{/ooc}
An example of OOC tags at work will appear in the gameplay thread.
1/ while giving back the berry jug to Oleg, i'd like to watch his hands and wrists to spot any sign of recent wounds. Strange a man whose hand was nearly cutted (as his wife said) a few months ago would hammer down some tiles on his roof...
2/ doing my best to help my fellows playing "hide and seek" before the bandits come, to find the best hiding places, taking in account the bandits will be on horses (using Gordom's horse maybe)
3/ trying to get used to the outside door to be more efficient with Naraja. Just a question: is it two separate doors (right and left) or just one big door, opening on the inside? Depending of your answer, we won't be hidin" at the same spot...
Male Human Ranger/1; HP 9/11; AC 15/12/13; Init +2
I'm confused. Vivian seems to think it will be her and Najara at the doors and I thought it was Vivian and me.
@Naraja: What was your plan for your character? If you want to be at the doors with Vivian that's fine I'll just hide in one of the towers.
@robertness: I just want to echo Vivian's question about single vs. double door and also ask if the towers are high enough to have clear line of sight to the center of the courtyard or if the buildings are blocking the view (asking as a marksman)
@Vivian:
1. You don't see signs of a recent wound. In further conversation with Oleg and Svetlana, it's revealed that the bandit boss swung at his hand as if she was going to chop it off but Oleg pulled his hand away at the last second. There is a big chunk missing from one of the tables in the courtyard which they claim is where the attack took place. Give me a Sense Motive roll if you want to check their veracity.
2. Your efforts to help everyone hide will get them +5 to their Stealth Rolls.
3. The gate has two doors, left and right, that swing in.
@Gordom: The tower platforms are a little higher than the roofs of the buildings. Without turning this into a full scale wargame, I'll rule as follows: If you're firing from a tower into the courtyard and your firing line crosses a building, there is a two square "blind zone" past the building that you cannot fire into. The towers are intended to provide fire out of the stockade.
Realizing there may be time zone issues, I'll hold off on the bandits arrival until everyone has a chance to post their locations to the gameplay thread or 7:00pm (EDT) Friday.
And this map shows why I would like everyone's location before the bandits show up. Let me know if you're having trouble determining who is who. Also tell me if I've got your character in the wrong place. Andarr and Firemane are outside as I don't think they've picked a starting spot yet.
When I said it would take two humans to close the doors, I meant one per door. Thus, Vivian and Najar can split up if they'd like. And the doors open wide enough that you can be hidden behind them when the bandits ride in and probably not be seen when the bandits in the stockade.
Shix Firley
